Amph ***OFFICIAL*** Comics Thread

Probably less than X-Men. Whatever the case, it would be nice if the new team remembers to use Marc’s recent Serpent Wars power up courtesy of Khonshu. IMO, Jim Zub’s concept is too good not to run with (“Take now a piece of the moon that is and every moon that shall ever be.”)

Ten points @Gamiel

 

Hey, the X-Men had a pretty good run up until 10 years ago or so, and then it was one constant reset after another.

 

But it was worth it, because now we all love the Inhumans and they’ve definitely become the new face of outsbwahahahahahaha

 

It really felt like the X-comics were finally crawling out of the hole of Decimation, and then they did the 'Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch not only aren't Magneto's kids, they were never mutants' followed by the death of Cyclops offscreen and that ****ing Inhumans nonsense.
Hickman's Krakoa reinvention oof the X-Men really pulled it out of a death spiral. I've tolerated a lot of garbage, but even I was about to dump the X-Men.

 

I did stop reading X-titles after Uncanny ended on issue 534, IIRC and split into the color coded titles of Blue, Gold, Red and whatever. I did read Hickman's House of X and Powers of X, and thought it was okay at best as it took a very long road to reset the X-Men side of Marvel. Additionally, I didn't think bouncing between House of X and Powers of X after each respective issue enhance the reading experience, but rather felt more disjointed.

That reminds me, how has the Fantastic Four comic book sales been doing? I've been going to my local comic book store on a weekly basis, but I don't recall seeing any Fantastic Four titles on the shelf over the last year.

 

Apparently Diamond’s charts haven’t been updated since some point in 2020.

So.

But sales aside, it’s trucking along under Slott. It’s a good, solid run, very much the kind of back to basics with some new twists approach the book needed after being... y’know, nonexistent for years.

 

I’m glad Hickman hit the right notes with X-Men. I am hoping someone eventually does the same with Moon Knight, Doctor Strange and Bucky Barnes. I’ll be satisfied if it’s just MK though.

 

Some Moon Knight interiors here...glad to see the art is very good.

 

Awh, Dan Slott. I watched his episode on the Marvel side of Disney+ and he's the old dinosaur in the Marvel writers stable. The last writer doing the old "Marvel Way." Which, I didn't know the details of that meant until I saw unfold in the episode, which makes me appreciate all the more what Jack "King" Kirby contributed to Marvel. And Kirby did on time and in voluminous amounts.

 

It don't works for me, just saying. I find the concept interesting and if it was an AU or a Image title would I not have problem with it but now it's part of 616 continuity and then I feel it destroy some characters and ignore the theological thing already established in Marvel that clones with memory implants are not the original character reborn but a new soul, so right now all souls of those people that we have seen being killed and "resurrected" are still in Marvel's afterlife/s, possibly beside the souls of the clone of them that was killed later. There are also some smaller stuff I have problem with but I'm not going to mention them since they are small and might actually have been given explenations in the comic, which I fully admit don't reading.

 

Honestly just from a philosophical standpoint the attitude that clones are the originals does bother me, but at least part of the book’s premise is that there’s supposed to be a mutant-centric ideological current that goes deliberately against what we think of as normal thinking, so it’s excusable in that context. In practice Hickman, like Ewing on Hulk, has identified a pretty real problem in superhero comics (that death will never mean anything again), and is taking steps to write it out, which I think is more laudable and interesting than pretending you can fix it.

I will say the one thing that actually does consistently get my goat, and this is not a post-Hickman exclusive problem by any means so I don’t blame it on the relaunch, is this idea that Nightcrawler is an expert on all religions by virtue of being religious. How the **** did we get from “A good Catholic Bavarian boy, checks out” to “Ah yes, I, as Nightcrawler, instantly recognize kabbalistisc concepts that fly over everyone else’s heads (including the actual Jewish characters) and am equipped with the right combination of spirituality and pragmatism to craft a new mutant religion”? It’s not like the man got a doctorate in comparative religions.

 

Or you could just stop killing people for tension, drama and angst.

That they have Nightcrawler of all people doing that is one of my problems with the story. Kurt is a true believing Catholic, that's an well established part of his character, thet he would try to create some new mutant religion is wrong. He should be the one speaking against attempts to create a new fushion faith. I would find it more belivable if he worked hard to get Krakoa declared a bishopric by the Catholic Church.

 

I personally think the two runs I mentioned are precisely part of the necessary process to get back to this type of writing. Authors need to be willing to grapple with the fact that death no longer has meaningful stakes in the medium and has become, at best, a cheap and impermanent means of generating drama, and addressing that head-on by making death textually meaningless gets it over that hill. Being coy about mortality just leaves the proverbial door open.

 

Wow, I had no idea about exactly what Hickman was doing with X-Men, interesting. Much less the religious concepts with Kurt.

Reread a favorite Moon Knight storyline (a rare tale that touches upon his Judaism), and thought about how that zealotry could be applied to other faiths in the D+ and upcoming comic series. Marc may have turned his back on becoming a rabbi, but his sense of righting wrongs and acting out judgment come from a desire to protect the innocent who did not or who cannot fight back. The upcoming comic will tackle justice and it should be interesting to see if the creative team do something new with that.

Of course, I’ve already seen Jewish fans moaning on social media about not being represented in the actor or by the creative team on the comic. After reading Bendis and Bemis’ craptastic arcs, this Jewish fan has no problem with “lack of representation”, as the concept of acting on religious zealotry means MK creative teams can address many faiths to highlight the good and the bad elements of religious and self righteousness. Sure, the irony of a rabbi’s son becoming a servant of an ancient Egyptian deity is pretty great, but I’d like to see more of the mythological Egyptian ideas mined across all mediums and perhaps in Marc’s personalities too. The MCU has opened my mind to tweaks in characters, so let’s see what happens.

On the current comic front, I hope the Wolverine team do something else with Maverick (this month’s issue is vampire related.) The recent arc was interesting, so I’d like more as Nord was painted rather ambiguously.

 

The 'clone' thing is actually an ongoing plotline. Havok was devastated to find out that Madelyne Pryor wouldn't be brought back after dying because of their policy on clones - while her last words were something to the effect of 'I just wanted people to acknowledge I existed'. Scout, the clone of X-23, wonders if she'll be brought back if she dies. Some questioned what happened with Kid Apocalypse, who was Apocalypse's clone.
If you're talking about the method of resurrection of the dead mutants, some of the mutants have questioned the theology as well - it may very well be the providence of the upcoming "Way of X" series, which goes into Nightcrawler's religious exploration of Krakoa. But I think in this case - that this isn't technological cloning but a group of mutant abilities working in concert - the metaphysics are that the actual soul of the original person is being reborn in a new body. While never made explicit, I think that it also precludes reanimating ordinary humans - one must be a mutant to be brought back.
OOU, I think it was a clever way to undo the massive damage of "Decimation" destroying the established stable of mutant characters, and making up for some of the most stupid arbitrary deaths over the years, like poor Skin.

 

Just wondering, how far back do those memory write ups go? Becouse if Lourdes Chantel or John Proudstar are among the "now living" do they have some strange times in front of them as the people neer them have notably changed.

Also, I just want to complain that I dislike how goverments and international organisations somehow are very quick to come to decisions and give founds if it will create troubles for the heroes when they never seems to do anything to stop the bad guys or are very slow to come to decitions in real life - as exemplified of latest by the known villain nation Madripoor somehow getting the UN to agree on a blockade to stop the Marauders' ship from landing in the island-nation, within a notably short time; or the creation of C.R.A.D.L.E. with all it's authorities.

 

The timescale thing on the backups is an interesting question because I don’t think there’s an answer yet. House/Powers set up that Moira is orchestrating a lot of this from the jump using her mutant repeat life ability, and consequently we’re not totally sure just how far back she, Charles, and Magneto began laying the groundwork for this. We do know there’s a connection to Cerebro, so it could theoretically date all the way back to the 60s era stuff. We also know that there are some people deliberately not being revived (Destiny being explicitly pointed out as the biggest red flag for future plot developments). Likely that’s a mystery to be sorted.

That said, apparently Thunderbird is listed as active as an Easter egg in the X of Swords Handbook, according to the Marvel Wikia. So.

 

I really should not complain about plot points in comics I don't read, but I admit to not helping myself here when I say that what I have seen of the storyline do it feel like many of the characters are made to fit the storyline instead of the other way around with them (to me) doing stuff that feels very OOC.

Now some of it probobly is explained in the comics but I don't want to spend money and investment into something that I just feel is going to make me want to punch something.

Something I wonder is how things are going to be put back to status quo when Hickman is finished with it all, hopefully not by having all the resurected people (ignoring the big names) dying again.

 

Alternative strategy:

Don't stress about the continuity.... Marvel doesn't.

 

Actually what’s been kind of fascinating about the whole enterprise is how it’s doing this insane retcon and worldbuilding gymnastics but simultaneously a lot of the characters feel pretty locked in to what I expect from them, Nightcrawler and Moira excepted for reasons I’ve touched upon. That definitely wasn’t my impression going in when I read House/Powers, but I think that was a little too ambitious for its own good. Everyone’s mileage may vary, however.

 

Marc Grunewald would like to have a word with you (after coming back from the dead).

Definitively, back to Giant-Sized X-Men because Petra and Sway were brought back. Changeling was seen as a cameo, so probably further.

Destiny not being brought back was mentioned by Moira specifically because they don't want precogs knowing what they're really up to.

 

QFT... glad the MCU kind of fixes that for some characters.

That said, the conversation is fascinating.

 

Yeah, though can't help but feel B's confusing Marvel with DC:

Mark Gruenwald? Rise.

 

DC’s continuity is actually very simple: the grabbing hands grab all they can, everything counts in large amounts. Doo doo de doo, doo doo de doo.

 

DC is the Swedish Chef;

Put da earth in da blender, hurdy gurdy gurdy.